I'm a writer, journalist, and the editor of The Gambit, the alt-weekly newspaper in New Orleans.

Journalism: My work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Globe & Mail (Canada), The Times- Picayune (New Orleans), The Oregonian, and Willamette Week, as well as in magazines including Details, Vogue, Publishers Weekly, and Portland Monthly.

Publishing:Tight Shot, my first novel, was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Its sequel, Hot Shot, was roundly ignored by everyone, but was a far better book. I'm also a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Stage: I was a member of the Groundlings and Circle Repertory West in Los Angeles, and am a playwright (see "Stage" in the right-hand rail).

January 02, 2008

Scoopiness

Kudos to Willamette Week for starting out the year with a genuinely worthy cover story: the upcoming mid-term resignation of Portland city councilman Erik Sten. Their website not only has the whole scoop, but a downloadable recording of the interview, and reporter Nigel Jaquiss managed to get the whole thing done so secretly that he caught the rest of the PDX media completely flat-footed.

It's clear in the interview that Sten wanted to shiv The Oregonian, and he did it: the morning edition on the street doesn't carry a word about one of the biggest local political stories of the year, and at the moment the paper's website carries a story containing only a confirmation from Sten's head of staff and a note that the councilman could not be reached for comment. Ouch.

Not a good start to the year for The Oregonian -- which is, of course, precisely what Erik Sten and Willamette Week wanted to achieve. In any case, it's nice to see the local media competing for genuine scoops for a change, rather than just bitching at one another. (Not to mention bitching at the bloggers.)

Comments

Yet weirdly, Sten says in the interview that the local bloggers are too obsessed with scooping each other. In my mind, that's what a healthy media scene is all about. And what his interview with Nigel embodies.

Incidentally why did Sten go to Nigel? The same Nigel who ran a story late last year accusing Sam Adams of, essentially, molesting a 17 year old boy, without anything to back it up?

"Yet weirdly, Sten says in the interview that the local bloggers are too obsessed with scooping each other. In my mind, that's what a healthy media scene is all about. And what his interview with Nigel embodies."

Ah, Matt - surely you're not looking for consistency or altruism in politicians?

He made it clear in the interview he had a beef with the O. Shiv-ing them with a scoop of this magnitude obviously trumps any beliefs he has about the local media.

"Incidentally why did Sten go to Nigel? The same Nigel who ran a story late last year accusing Sam Adams of, essentially, molesting a 17 year old boy, without anything to back it up?"

Because Nigel is a good reporter (despite a couple of eyebrow-raising missteps in '07), and because...well...he wanted to shiv the O by taking the story to what the O would consider its major competitor.

"Still, I'm just bitter. Well done WW. I suppose."

It was very well done. And the Mercury, by giving WW credit, also handled it well.

The O didn't extend that courtesy. Did you see the analysis by the O's Anna Griffin, who is an excellent reporter in her own right but seemed stuck with the thankless duty of playing catch-up? She wrote:

"To anyone who follows Portland politics, Erik Sten's decision to leave office barely halfway through his fourth term isn't a complete shock. Sten, once the City Council's boy wonder and now its longest-serving member, has seemed to be drifting since even before he ran for re-election in 2006....Still, his departure will resonate, even if it's more in symbolism than in substance."

Ho-hum. Nothing to see here, folks.

As bitter as you may feel, Matt, imagine the spirit of wormwood in the O newsroom as they contemplate their Rose Bowl front page against the WW's this morning. I saw the two front pages next to one another in a rack of newsboxes this a.m., and all I could think was: It could be worse; it could be Snowball the deer.

BOOKS

Booklist:
"A worthy successor to Tight Shot, Allman's insider view of the seamier side of Hollywood is not only hip and entertaining but also has something serious to say about our insatiable hunger for tabloid thrills."

Washington Post:
"Barbed, breezy and often pretty funny...sharp and entertaining. Allman can be very funny, and Hot Shot complements nicely the less forgiving takes on Los Angeles as the future of us all. "

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EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE
BEST FIRST NOVEL
MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA

Booklist:
"Allman turns a very sardonic pen loose on Hollywood's glitz-and-glamour crowd in this entertaining first novel... An impressive debut and an almost sure thing for a sequel."

STAGE

BOO AND THE SHREVEPORT BABY

A French Quarter convenience-store clerk has a hilariously traumatic encounter with a pair of Shreveport tourists. Part of Native Tongues 3 (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2001; Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago; 2006).

A recreation of an evening at the notorious New Orleans 1950s female-impersonator nightclub My-O-My (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2005).

THE LOVE GIFT

A lonely man discovers purpose when he intercepts a televangelist's letters from his neighbor's mailbox. Part of the Dramarama New Plays Festival (Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; 2004).

BABYDADDY

A black father discovers that no good deed goes unpunished when he helps his white neighbor bail her son out of Orleans Parish Prison. (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2004; Walker Percy Southern Playwrights Festival, Covington; 2007).

TWO IN THE BUSH

An evening of comedies. In The Stud Mule, the world's richest woman arranges to be impregnated by a doltish escort; in Snatching Victory, an earnest college student runs afoul of her lecherous professor and the dour head of a women's-studies department (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2003).

NEW ORLEANS READING

Patty Friedmann: A Little Bit RuinedOne of the first post-Katrina novels, and probably destined to be one of the best. Friedmann's sequel to Eleanor Rushing finds her crazy heroine still holding everything together after the storm (after a fashion), until she has to leave New Orleans and she falls apart physically as well as mentally. Mordantly, morbidly funny.

Tom Piazza: Why New Orleans MattersThe best post-Katrina book I've read. In 150 small pages, Piazza explicates the New Orleans experience simply and beautifully. I'll be passing this one on to anyone who wonders "But why would anyone want to live there?".